Our expectations were low, but my God. The Bengals gave us a legendarily ugly performance against the Vikings in the Browning-Wentz Bowl on Sunday. It was so putrid that before the fourth quarter Tony Romo grimly told his audience “this could get worse.”
Thankfully it didn’t or the FCC would have gotten complaints for CBS airing cruel and unusual punishment on live TV. When the final whistle blew the score was 48-10, and the perfect distillation of everything wrong with the Bengals. If Joe Burrow isn’t on the field, nothing else matters. It’s all pretty window dressing, distractions, and like standing next to a rollercoaster in the magic kingdom it’s a nice environment — but none of that matters when there’s a giant puddle of vomit in front of you.
It’s far too easy to dunk on Jake Browning for this loss. Yes, he was awful, but there’s nothing to inform us that he was going to be good against an aggressive, creative Brian Flores defense that had a week to study him. The issue, once more, is that Zac Taylor is a terrible football coach. If he can’t ride Burrow to success then Cincinnati becomes one of the worst teams in the NFL, because he’s incapable of devising a came plan to target different opponents. It’s the same old refrain, where this team wins it’s in spite of Taylor, not because of him — then he plays the blame game when things go wrong. We didn’t even get to halftime and he was revving up the bus to toss his players under when speaking to Tracy Wolfson on air.
“Anytime you have four turnovers in the first half, two for touchdowns, one as you’re trying to run out the clock at the end of half, it’s unacceptable. So we’ve got to get it fixed. We’ve got to play hard the second half. Obviously the score is what the score is. We’ve got a lot of pride to play for right now.”
The score at halftime was 34-3. It didn’t get a whole lot better. Cincinnati turned the ball over less, but the was no change in strategy which could have altered the outcome of the game. Tee Higgins’ mom didn’t mince her feelings about the Bengals’ head coach.
When Chase Brown carries the ball 10 times for three yards only so much of that is on the player. It’s not like he forgot how to play football. What it shows is that at no point did the Bengals have a plan to either work the run of find yards through the air while knowing the Vikings were going to stuff the box because they didn’t respect Browning’s arm.
It also showed a complete lack of understanding to the creative blitz packages the Vikings were going to throw at the Bengals, and what they could do to mitigate its success. Considering he was an offensive coordinator in the NFL for two years before getting a head coaching job you’d think he would have some answers — but alas.
This is going to be the new normal for the Bengals until Burrow returns. Cincinnati has pivoted from a team that always has a chance because of their QB, to never having a shot because of its coach. This is not normal. This should not be normalized. Teams around the NFL have to deal with injuries to their quarterback, and sure, perhaps it’s not as pronounced as losing Burrow — but to have no idea how to work around being without him is a cardinal sin in the NFL where adaptation is the name of the game.
We’re entering a bad, bad four game stretch for the Bengals against the Broncos, Lions, Packers, and Steelers. If this team can’t find a way for something to change they’ll be 2-6 before they know it, and praying they can beat the likes of the Jets and Bears ahead of their bye week.
Now we’ll go around the rest of the league to pick out the biggest winners and losers of Week 3.
Winner: The Carolina Panthers
I’m not sure another team in the league needed this win this badly as the Panthers. The mood would still be decent had Carolina won the game by a narrow margin — but demolishing the Falcons 30-0 at home was needed so badly for a multitude of reasons.
It showed that Bryce Young can win football games. It showed the defense has the talent to get things done to flip the field. There’s no question that horrible performances on Atlanta’s side helped Carolina, but this is a Panthers team that has been woefully incapable of capitalizing on the mistakes of others. That’s the part of football often overlooked.
We’re hardly talking about the vibes being immaculate in Carolina, not yet — but it’s bought this team a little time in the eyes of the fans. That’s what they needed to do.
Let’s dovetail off the Panthers into this one, because it was a pretty similar story. The Cowboys made life very, very easy for Caleb Williams with an absolutely horrific defensive game plan — but taking advantage of blown coverage isn’t something Williams has been able to do in his career thus far.
It’s one thing to give every receiver 10-yard cushions and wide open throwing lanes, but it’s meaningless if the quarterback can’t take advantage of it. Caleb has been criticized with a lot of justification this season, but for this week he put it all together. A monster performance that is the building block he’s been needing under Ben Johnson to start putting things together.
Winner: The Eagles’ comeback
Most people expected the Eagles to beat the Rams, but it took some real guts to come back against Los Angeles when everything was going so poorly. This team caught fire after halftime, spurred on by key changes made at the break. It would have been easy to accept this game as a loss, but Nick Sirianni’s team never stopped fighting.
This was a signature win on the season, showing that the Eagles are still that damn good compared to top playoff opponents in the NFC.
Loser: The Raiders’ softness
We knew this would be a process of rebuilding and changing the culture in Vegas, but being so ineffective against the Commanders when they’re led by Marcus Mariota is a major problem for the direction of this team.
The Raiders were extremely soft. They allowed 400 total yards, including over 200 on the ground. It didn’t matter that Mariota was barely a threat through the air, because they couldn’t stop anything to make passing the football more difficult. This is the kind of culture shift you want to see, but the Raiders kind of just rolled over in the second half and accepted their fate.
This team is now 1-2 on the year, and that might be okay — but this was an ugly performance.
Loser: Everything going on with the Houston Texans right now
This was a team I thought was getting way too much hype before the season, and that really played out on Sunday. I still believe C.J. Stroud has everything it takes to be a top flight QB, but this team is incapable of helping him.
The decision to overload on receivers in spite of the offensive line just hasn’t worked — and it’s bizarre that the Texans seemingly decided to model themselves after the Bengals. Nico Collins is the only receiver able to do anything, and the rest is a wash — while the Jaguars were able to pressure Stroud into bad throws and rushed decisions.
Prior to the season they were the favorites to win the AFC South. Now they’re in a wet noodle fight for last place with the Titans. It’s a sad state of affairs, and at some point DeMeco Ryans needs to answer for why he thought this was going to work in 2025.
Hey Jer’, congrats on finding a way to stop the run. I know that was important to you — and y’all only gave up 89 rushing yards to the Bears on Sunday.
Just a bit of a shame you gave up 298 passing yards and Caleb Williams threw four touchdowns through the air. At least you made a real statement showing you couldn’t be bossed around by a star defensive end.
